Priding himself on his pessimistic, world-weary point of view, local boarding student Jacob Fuller ’17told press last Tuesday that he “has absolutely no problem being alone on Valentine’s Day.”

“I’ve lost hope in this country’s democratic system, how could I possibly be preoccupied with some arbitrary, consumerist holiday?” asked Fuller, an outspoken solipsist and alumnus of the Center for Talented Youth summer program. “That was a rhetorical question, in case you didn’t understand,” he later added.

“You know, 21 percent of adults in the US read below a fifth-grade level. Chances are the person I meet, if that ever happens, will be a complete idiot,” said Fuller, who owns a collection of classic vinyls and is a regular reader of the websites Pitchfork and Consequence of Sound.

“Why would I waste my time looking for a soulmate that, statistically, doesn’t exist?”, mused Fuller. Instead, as he informed reporters, he planned to spend the day reading Kurt Vonnegut, listening to beatnik poet Allen Ginsberg’s magnum opus “Howl,” and watching “Annie Hall.”

“The problem with the kids here is they’re too focused on their hook-ups to realize they live in a giant echo chamber. Wake up, people — get your heads out of your feeding troughs. We live on a rock hurtling through space. It’s all for nothing. And you really think you, you, a microscopic speck of dust, could ever understand another human? Jesus, we’re a bunch of apes! None of this is real! Are you getting this all down?”